How to clear porn off your iPad or iPhone

Giving away, returning, or just lending your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad and need to know how to clear off any porn -- er, adult content -- that might have somehow made its way onto your device? We may not have had the fun with this issue that our AndroidCentral friends did over the holidays, but we can share their cautionary advice... after the break!

Steve Jobs might say Android is for porn and iPhone is not (never mind the numbers...), but iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad have Safari, the best web browser in the mobile business, and as everyone but Apple's CEO apparently knows -- the web, it has porn. More than that, your texts might be sexts, your email extreme, your photos more than flirty, and while your App Store apps can't be rated XXX, they still could be rated R. How do you tidy things up before giving away or lending your device? Here are some options

Total Wipe

If you're just returning your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad to Apple, Best Buy, or another retailer your best option is to nuke it completely, i.e. "Erase all content and settings."

Deleting Photos

You can only delete Photos that are in the Camera Roll. If you want to delete a synced album you have to connect to iTunes and deselect the photos so they don't sync any more. To delete from the Camera Roll:

Clearing Mail

Just remove the email account. You can always add it back later, especially if it's a server-side IMAP or ActiveSync account like MobileMe, Gmail, Exchange, etc.

Launch Settings

Scroll down to Mail, Contacts, Calendars

Tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars

Tap the account you want to delete

Scroll to the bottom

Tap Delete

If you really only want to delete individual email threads:

Launch Mail

Follow the same instructions as for Messages, as described above.

Clearing Safari

Streaming might be safer than storing on-device, but web sites, especially advertising heavy web sites, especially porn sites, love to keep track of you. While there's no "private browsing mode" for iOS Safari like there is for Mac Safari, you can still manually clear it out.

Deleting Apps

Touch and hold your finger down on the app until it goes into "Jiggly Mode" (starts to dance around).

Look for the small X badge at the top left of the app you want to delete

Tap the small X badge

A dialog box will pop up identifying the name of the app you're about to delete and warning you that you'll delete all the data in the app as well (your account login, game progress, etc.)

If you're sure, tap Delete (if you're not, tap Cancel)

If you decide not to delete an app, tap the Home Button to exit Jiggly Mode

Deleting Movies

If you have synced any movies over, they're simple to delete as well:

Launch iPod

Tap Movies

Swipe from left to right over the movie

Tap the Delete button

Deny, deny, deny

Again, the "Erase all content and settings" is your first, best option if you're really getting rid of your device. With everything else, your being human, you'll eventually mess up. If you do, just remember what every celebrity and politician on every talk/news show in America has taught us -- deny, deny, deny!

Any browser that doesn't give you the option to display Flash, severely limiting access to porn, is not the best in the business. But hey, at least you can brush up on your checker skills while your page loads or when pinching to zoom.

I worked in phone retail for a few years and it never ceased to amaze me how many people would trade in phones or return them and wouldn't delete the personal stuff first. I've never had a job which exposed me to so much stranger T&A or C&B before or since.
Sometimes, I miss those days. Always good for a salacious chuckle. ;-)

You should be aware that clearing Safari's caches, cookies, and history, doesn't touch the auto complete/suggested sites. Even with history cleared, manually entering a URL will helpfully pop up suggestions for sites you have previously visited.
This has been a bug for quite some time.

DK2676: Fake. I'm guessing someone jailbroke, changed the text, and tries to wow their friends that they have an "exclusive" CDMA iPhone. I'm guessing their friends aren't impressed; but maybe I'm just old.

vj,
View the album containing the photo(s) you wish to ... delete
Tap the arrow at the upper right corner
Tap the photos you wish to ... delete (up to ... whatever)
Tap “delete” at the bottom .... right corner

How do I clear the back arrow history when using Safari/Google in my iPad? Even after I clear the History, Cookies and Cache I can still go back to Google and use my back arrow. I do not want to be able to revisit previous web sites. Help!

WRONG in IOS 5 in safari you can go to setting (on an iPhone or iPad) under settings you will scrolling down 'private browsing' flick the switch to ON confirm remove or keep your current tabs then launch safari it will now be black as opposed to the usual silver window and tabless (if you made it that way) and wont record any history till you turn it off

I am really inspired with your writing skills as well as with the layout in your weblog. Is this a paid theme or did you customize it your self? Anyway stay up the nice quality writing, it is uncommon to look a great blog like this one these days..

Hey guys, if you are looking to hide your porn on your i Phone, try Folder Lock. Its a specialized software developed to hide porn. It's free to try for 30 days.Just Google "Folder Lock" and it should show up as a first result.

IF YOU WANT TO BE A WORLD WIDE PORN STAR OR INTERESTED IN BECOMING A PORN STAR,PORN STRIPPER,WANT TO BE SERIOUSLY FUCKED BY A YOUNG FRESH BLOOD OR YOU HAVE ALL IT TAKES TO BE A PORN STAR HERE IS YOUR CHANCE OF BECOMING ONE. EMAIL US AT dopepornstar@gmail.com

IF YOU WANT TO BE A WORLD WIDE PORN STAR OR INTERESTED IN BECOMING A PORN STAR,PORN STRIPPER,WANT TO BE SERIOUSLY FUCKED BY A YOUNG FRESH BLOOD OR YOU HAVE ALL IT TAKES TO BE A PORN STAR HERE IS YOUR CHANCE OF BECOMING ONE. EMAIL US AT dopepornstar@gmail.com

What I don't get, is if that information/media is SO private, why are you carrying it around with you? to work, to home, out to eat. To me storing personal pictures of yourself nude is raunchy to begin with, but do you really have a need to carry a picture of your dongs around?

Lets grow up a little.

on a side note, it is your device to do whatever with, but WTF are you doing putting stuff personal onto a device without already knowing how to get rid of it?

that's like shoving a bunch of raw ingredients into the stove and then going to look up how to actually cook it down the road...

Believe it or not, some people DON'T WANT adult content on their iPad or iPhone. Families who share their iPad with their kids for ex.

You can actually filter the internet to block this stuff with a service like PageClean.com (yes, I work with them). This way you can:
- lock porn off your tablet
- stop sexting apps like SnapChat
- lock the filter in place